Equine fatality, Willie & PATRICK.

​If we lived in a picture-perfect world, all animals would live carefree lives, there would be no predators for them to worry about and every human-being would cheerfully uphold their responsibility to all living creatures.
I believe that in the racing industry, both in racing stables and studs, that in the whole of humanity racing people come closest to upholding the last clause of my opening paragraph. We, as racing people, are not 100% perfect and some of us ignore our responsibilities toward the animals in our charge. They are by far the minority, thou they cast their shadow over all us all.
It both pains me that a racehorse may lose its life while on active duty and yet I also accept that ‘these things happen’, and I believe, or perhaps hope, that the contract between horse and man is kept if in life the deceased horse has been well-cared for and has known the love of humankind.
Celebre D’Allen lost his life three-days after running such a fine and honourable race in the Aintree National. He was thirteen and had not raced since the onset of winter. His death will be controversial, even within the racing family. Michael Nolan was suspended for 10-days for failing to pull-up when, in the view of the stewards, the horse had no more to give. In the view of the stewards, sadly they may have a point, the horse was galloped to death. I hope I am way off the mark with this statement and I certainly hope that if an autopsy is carried out an underlying medical condition will be discovered to explain Celebre D’Allen’s death.
Of course, at the back of my mind, though I hesitate to admit to it, is the suggestion that Aintree did not deserve another equine fatality.

Is Willie Mullins and his all-conquering Closutton stable good or bad for the sport? Firstly, Willie Mullins, and I have never met him or likely will, is by all accounts a gentleman, with no sign of boasting about his extraordinary achievements. Everyone likes him, even those whose great success he is eclipses season after season. And he is no overnight success. He has worked long and hard to get to the summit of the sport. He is a good man and no one should bear him a grudge for being the best there has ever been.
He is where he is because he does everything in the right manner. If a horse needs time, boy does Mullins give them time. And he surrounds himself with expert opinion, even though come the hour he makes his own decisions, very often at the very last minute available to him. And he is right more often than he is wrong. I suspect the genius may not necessarily be the man himself but the team around him.
Although I agree it is up to his rivals to improve their own results in order to bridge the divide between Closutton and themselves, for the good of the sport, at least in the short term, my proposal of limiting any one trainer to a maximum number of horses he or she can train in any one season should be seriously considered. When I first considered this option, I was more thinking of spreading the workforce around so that all trainers had the scope to have a full compliment of experienced staff. If a trainer was forced to reduce his or her numbers down to say 125, a trainer would be forced to lay-off a few members of his or her team, allowing them to be snapped-up by smaller trainers in need of experienced staff. Now I believe it would help spread the good horses and the wealthy owners who can afford those horses to a wider network of trainers.
That said, one can only be awe of the ever-expanding list of achievements attached to the name of Willie Mullins.

Then there is the other great talent bearing the name Mullins, Patrick. The best amateur rider in National Hunt history and, to my mind, a writer to equal the very best the sport has ever known. He is already alongside the likes of Lord Oaksey and Alastair Down as a writer, in Patrick’s case in as few words as is possible, with the fluidity of thought to take the reader straight into the heart of any subject he writes about. Read his piece on how he won the National in today’s Racing Post and tell me my enthusiasm for his writing is misplaced, if you can.
As a rider he is the equal of most of the top professionals and to use the term ‘amateur’ to describe him is almost derogatory. I know he would miss out on all the bumper horses that give him the bulk of his winning total but why not turn professional. Yes, his weight would prevent him from riding in a large number of the day-to-day races but on the other hand why not be paid to ride in races against professionals, especially when he would not be limited to the small number of rides against professionals as he is in Ireland by the terms of his amateur licence.
Anyway, as I wrote yesterday (or was it the day before?) I would do away with the amateur licence and just term everyone who rides over jumps, including point-to-points, as riders.
I wonder if his father will now keep Patrick on Nick Rockett or will Paul Townend pull rank on him? I suspect Nick Rockett might be trained for a crack at the Gold Cup next season, which would leave the door open to keep the partnership intact, and who is to say that Patrick Mullins will not add a Cheltenham Gold Cup to his exemplary c.v.?